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Eclipse 0.0.018

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Fry
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About This File

 Eclipse

Eclipse for BigBox is a different kind of theme.  Rather than using the normal theme engine, it uses a plug-in to build the user interface from the ground up.  The goal for this plug-in is to provide: 

  • Netflix style user interface with multiple lists of games on the screen at one time
  • Voice search
  • Random game function

 

Platform list view

Eclipse - Platform List.png

 

Game detail view

Eclipse - Game Details.png

 

Options for categorizing games

Eclipse - Options.png

 

Startup theme

Eclipse - Startup Theme.png

 

Shutdown theme

Eclipse - Exit Theme.png

 

Attract mode (screen saver)

image.png

 

Demo

 

Installation Instructions
1. Download: https://forums.launchbox-app.com/files/file/3220-eclipse/
2. Extract the contents to a folder
3. Inside the Eclipse folder is a folder called LaunchBox
4. Copy the Plugins, StartupThemes, and Themes folders
5. Go to your Launch Box installation folder and paste the copied folders
6. Open Big Box
7. Esc to get to options
8. Select Options > Views
9. Set Theme to Eclipse
10. Set Platforms List View to Platform Wheel 1
11. If you want to use the startup theme, Options > Game Startup
    - Uncheck Show "Loading Game..." Message
    - Check Enable Startup Screen
    - Startup Theme: Eclipse
    - Minimum Startup Screen Display Time: 5 seconds
    - Maximum Startup screen Display Time: 5 seconds
    - Check Hide Mouse Cursor on Startup Screens
12. Go back - the first time the theme starts will take a long load time to generate the image cache
13. NOTE - If you get any errors, you can check the log file called Eclipse.txt in your LaunchBox folder and message me on the forums to let me know

General usage
- Up, Down, Left, Right - moves around
- Enter - selects something
- Escape - cancel or go back - pressing it will get you back to the BigBox settings where you can exit the application
- Page Up - pick a random game
- Page Down - voice search

Bezels
- Bezel images can be displayed around the preview videos
- The system will first look for a game specific bezel. If not found, it will look for a platform specific bezel. If not found, it will look for a default bezel. 
- A few default bezels are provided with the installation. You can delete them from the folders specified below if you prefer the videos without bezels.

Game specific bezels
- The system tries to find a game specific bezel image in the following order:

1. In plug-in media directory:
..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\{PLATFORM}\{CleanGameTitle}.png

- Here {CleanGameTitle} replaces any invalid characters with an underscore. Characters like ' and : cannot appear in file names so they are replaced with an underscore
- For example: A bezel file for the game "19XX: The War Against Destiny" should have the following path and file name ..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Images\Arcade\Bezel\19XX_ The War Against Destiny.png

MAME bezels
- If a game specific bezel isn't found in the plug-ins media folder as described above, then the program will look into the MAME installation folder. In order for MAME bezels to work, installing the bezel project for MAME would create files with this structure:

..\LaunchBox\Emulators\MAME\artwork{game.ApplicationFilePath}"Bezel.png"

Retroarch bezels
- Bezels installed by the bezel project for retroarch will go into a folder location like this:

..\LaunchBox\Emulators\Retroarch\overlays\GameBezels{RetroarchPlatform}{game.ApplicationFilePath}.png

Platform specific bezels
- These are used if there are no game specific bezels found
- You can specify a different image for horizontally and vertically oriented games so that they fit appropriately
- The platform specific bezel image files must have the following file names and locations:
..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\{PLATFORM}\Horizontal.png
..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\{PLATFORM}\Vertical.png

System default bezels
- These are used if there are no game specific or platform specific bezels found
- You can specify a different image for horizontally and vertically oriented games so that they fit appropriately
- The default bezel image files must have the following file name and location:
..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\Platforms\Default\Horizontal.png
..\LaunchBox\Plugins\Eclipse\Media\Bezels\Platforms\Default\Vertical.png

Looking for feedback

I'm looking for any suggestions that would make this theme better.  What's currently on my list for improvements:

  1. New option to add a game to a playlist from the game detail screen
  2. New option to display game manuals from the game detail screen
  3. Improve image cache logic to better detect differences between LB images and plugin image cache
  4. Use VLC for video playback 
  5. Option to flip box art 
    1. This could be expanded a bit more to 
  6. Show achievements in game details
  7. Improvements to the options side-panel that opens up under the gear (add some icons and make it look a little less "blah")
  8. Several ideas for configuration options
    1. Default category and list to pick when opening 
    2. Minimum number of games required to be included in a category
      1. This would allow you to eliminate lists don't have more than 1 game showing in the series category for example
  9. Improvements to the loading screen to make it prettier
  10. Performance improvements for loading times by doing more work in the background
  11. Overhaul of entire codebase
    1. Support for any resolution or aspect ratio - currently this only works (well) on 16:9 screens
    2. Make game lists more dynamic - the implementation of the lists uses a bunch of static image controls 
    3. Localization

If anyone thinks of anything that could make this theme better, I'd be interested to hear it!

Source Code
If you're interested in the source code, it's (not pretty and it's) available here: 
https://github.com/AtomFry/Eclipse

Edited by Fry
Adding suggestion

What's New in Version 0.0.018   See changelog

Released

Added setting under Other, "Display eclipse options on escape".  Default behavior is when you press escape from the game list, it opens the side pane to let you select which metadata field you want to group lists.  Uncheck this box and pressing escape will bypass this pane and go straight to the BigBox settings.

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Fry
6 hours ago, samisnow said:

I absolutely love this theme however am finding issues with the voice search it is not working.

The error that is coming up it "The language for the grammar does not match the language for the speech recognizer"

I am in Australia and have my languages set to English Australia

Hi there, glad you are enjoying it so far. Regarding the error, do you have an eclipse.txt file in your Launchbox folder with any details about the error?  If so, please send it over, it may help me to figure out what is causing the error. I’ll see if I can figure out how to change the language in my computer to English Australia and whether I can reproduce the error. 

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Kinglifer
On 10/8/2023 at 2:01 AM, samisnow said:

I absolutely love this theme however am finding issues with the voice search it is not working.

The error that is coming up it "The language for the grammar does not match the language for the speech recognizer"

I am in Australia and have my languages set to English Australia

I think he is revamping the search mech soon.

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Kinglifer
On 9/4/2023 at 8:59 PM, Fry said:

Yeah this is still on my radar.  It's the main feature I've been working on when I've had time to work on this project but time has been super limited.  So far, I've got a new search option that opens an onscreen keyboard and when you input values into the keyboard, it will present a list of matching metadata values as possible filters.  I need to take it further and allow you to select from the filters and have it filter the game list with the selected filters.    

Here's how it's looking at this time.  I'm still working out the layout and how it should all be incorporated into the overall theme.

image.thumb.png.f129b5fc8ba45306917d5e8688cebe43.png

Can we get a boot leg version of that? The kids will be over soon and I would like to search for them on the TV. If it is possible. Thank you!

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Fry

Unfortunately I have been too swamped to spend a second thinking about this project and it’s not in a state where a new release would provide you with the value you’re looking for. Some day when my work is not so busy I will come back to this (maybe…hopefully). I do miss working on this but other responsibilities, ya know?  The code is out there for anyone to extend as they like!

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Kinglifer
On 11/21/2023 at 5:47 PM, Fry said:

Unfortunately I have been too swamped to spend a second thinking about this project and it’s not in a state where a new release would provide you with the value you’re looking for. Some day when my work is not so busy I will come back to this (maybe…hopefully). I do miss working on this but other responsibilities, ya know?  The code is out there for anyone to extend as they like!

That hit hard. Because I totally understand what you mean. Times has changed and hobbies seem like a luxury now.
Sigh. I feel you. 

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